Determination of biogenic amines as dansyl derivatives in alcoholic beverages by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorimetric detection and characterization of the dansylated amines by liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry

A sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the simultaneous determination of 11 biogenic amines has been developed. The method involves addition of an internal standard (1,7-diaminoheptane), pre-column dansylation of the amines and subsequent solid-phase extraction of the derivatives through C18 cartridges. The dansylamides were separated on an Inertsil ODS-3 column (250 x 4 mm I.D., 5 microm) using a 35-min gradient elution with a binary system of acetonitrile-water, a flow-rate of 1 ml min(-1) and fluorescence detection at excitation and emission wavelengths of 320 and 523 nm, respectively. The identity of the dansyl derivatives was confirmed by liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry. Linearity of derivatization was obtained for concentrations ranging from 0.008 to 40.0 mg l(-1). The within- and between-day relative standard deviations ranged from 0.2 to 7.6% and 0.3 to 8.6%, respectively. The overall process was successfully applied to identify and quantify biogenic amines in white-, red- and Retsina Greek wines and Greek beers, after treatment with polyvinylpyrrolidone.